Waterbox 50.3: Welcome to Reeferdale!

[BristleWormHater]

An all-white FTS to show off my neon green rock, LOL:

I’m desperate for a tuxedo urchin before the GHA gets out of hand, but I hate my nearest LFS and the good one is a serious chore with an 18 month old in tow. Scrubbing it is tougher than I thought it would be, those hairs are really anchored down. I figure at least keeping them somewhat shorter by breaking the strands is still helping somehow. My decorative nub is making progress, in probably two more weeks it will be big enough to compete meaningfully with the GHA. I’ve been stirring the sand a bit so that more diatoms add to the competition, too. More CUC eat those!

All my fish seem good except for the missing basslet. All corals seem happy except for my still halfway-extended GSP, but unless I’m imagining it it seems to be improving a bit. I’ve seen my two bigger shrimp molt and I’m still hearing snaps occasionally from my tiny pistol shrimp.

Onward!

Gha is really annoying, just beat it out in January. I frequently scrubbed the rocks with a toothbrush and let my pincusion urchin do rest. Astrea snails help too and hermit crabs can get the algae that you can't reach (like in holes in the rock). Wishing you luck and excited to see where this thread goes!

 

[JHud88]

Nice, I’ve got the same tank. Really well made. I added the InTank cover to the back looks good and keeps algae out the back.

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

Nice, I’ve got the same tank. Really well made. I added the InTank cover to the back looks good and keeps algae out the back.

Great looking tank! What’s all the equipment below?

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

Gha is really annoying, just beat it out in January. I frequently scrubbed the rocks with a toothbrush and let my pincusion urchin do rest. Astrea snails help too and hermit crabs can get the algae that you can't reach (like in holes in the rock). Wishing you luck and excited to see where this thread goes!

I just did a @reefcleaners order of mostly stuff I never see in my LFSs. Limpets, dwarf cerith and dwarf planaxis, and dove snails. As well as some decorative macros and two more emerald crabs to get over the shipping minimum haha. I think that plus manual removal will see me through GHA!

 

[Fish Styx]

An all-white FTS to show off my neon green rock, LOL:

I’m desperate for a tuxedo urchin before the GHA gets out of hand, but I hate my nearest LFS and the good one is a serious chore with an 18 month old in tow. Scrubbing it is tougher than I thought it would be, those hairs are really anchored down. I figure at least keeping them somewhat shorter by breaking the strands is still helping somehow. My decorative nub is making progress, in probably two more weeks it will be big enough to compete meaningfully with the GHA. I’ve been stirring the sand a bit so that more diatoms add to the competition, too. More CUC eat those!

All my fish seem good except for the missing basslet. All corals seem happy except for my still halfway-extended GSP, but unless I’m imagining it it seems to be improving a bit. I’ve seen my two bigger shrimp molt and I’m still hearing snaps occasionally from my tiny pistol shrimp.

Onward!

Ahh, yes- the uglies! It will pass soon enough and that beautiful aquascape will color up nicely. Things seem to be moving along well. Beautiful build, bud. I'll be tagging along for the ride.

 

[Smoke-Town]

Nice start on your new system. Love your rockwork. I think you made the right move transferring those corals over for the bacteria, not to mention the nutrient filtration they provide. just be careful the the fast spreaders aren't able to overly attach to your main rockwork so it's easier to manage or remove when you get to the point where you have enough of whatever your desired coral types are.

I think the short green hair algae like that actually looks cool. if only it would stay that way, it would be a sweet contrast if it randomly patterned with purple and coraline algae. have you added any coraline? If not i think it would help fight for control of that white real estate you've got. Looks like you could use a couple tangs in there by now also. what's your fish plan?

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

Nice start on your new system. Love your rockwork. I think you made the right move transferring those corals over for the bacteria, not to mention the nutrient filtration they provide. just be careful the the fast spreaders aren't able to overly attach to your main rockwork so it's easier to manage or remove when you get to the point where you have enough of whatever your desired coral types are.

I think the short green hair algae like that actually looks cool. if only it would stay that way, it would be a sweet contrast if it randomly patterned with purple and coraline algae. have you added any coraline? If not i think it would help fight for control of that white real estate you've got. Looks like you could use a couple tangs in there by now also. what's your fish plan?

I had the classic Xenia experience in my first tank so I’m very careful to keep things on islands!

The pale green is pretty, you’re right! But my last tank, the rock work ended up nearly black and my emerald couldn’t keep up. I have a lot of plugs and snails covered with coraline so I think it’ll get going in its own time. I do have one dead Astraea on the sand bed right now, I’m thinking of scraping its all over the rocks to seed them before I toss it.

Fishwise, I’ve got my clowns, YWG (and pistol), engineer goby, royal gramma, and sixline wrasse (it’s super tiny, it won’t be able to be aggressive to any later fish). Theoretically I have a blackcap basslet I haven’t seen since A few days after I got it—I think I was too optimistic about my rock work being enough for it and the royal gramma. I don’t even know if it’s alive.

Anyway, fish I still want: long nose hawk fish, the weirdest looking blenny I can manage (probably lawnmower), and bangaiis. I haven’t really considered tangs, but the good LFS has baby blue tangs that he says will be small enough for a 50 for a few years. I just don’t know if I’ll have enough habitat to keep one without stressing out the others.

 

[BristleWormHater]

I had the classic Xenia experience in my first tank so I’m very careful to keep things on islands!

The pale green is pretty, you’re right! But my last tank, the rock work ended up nearly black and my emerald couldn’t keep up. I have a lot of plugs and snails covered with coraline so I think it’ll get going in its own time. I do have one dead Astraea on the sand bed right now, I’m thinking of scraping its all over the rocks to seed them before I toss it.

Fishwise, I’ve got my clowns, YWG (and pistol), engineer goby, royal gramma, and sixline wrasse (it’s super tiny, it won’t be able to be aggressive to any later fish). Theoretically I have a blackcap basslet I haven’t seen since A few days after I got it—I think I was too optimistic about my rock work being enough for it and the royal gramma. I don’t even know if it’s alive.

Anyway, fish I still want: long nose hawk fish, the weirdest looking blenny I can manage (probably lawnmower), and bangaiis. I haven’t really considered tangs, but the good LFS has baby blue tangs that he says will be small enough for a 50 for a few years. I just don’t know if I’ll have enough habitat to keep one without stressing out the others.

Considered a starry blenny instead of a lawnmower? Of course im totally unbiased

 

[zizuoz5]

Six months ago, I got a Biocube 16 (The old build thread). I probably had a lot of beginners luck, but things went well enough that I am now a committed reefer- even more so because my son, 10 months old when I started, seems to be enjoying it more and more every time he hits some developmental milestone (he already says 'hi fish' when he sees the tank, and his favorite inhabitant is the cleaner shrimp). So what else is there to do at this point but upgrade to my big boy tank? Behold, the Day 1 FTS:

We ended up with 40lbs of aquascape (I weighed it on my bathroom scale, haha), 40 lbs of sand, and exactly 40 gallons of water inside!
The aquascape was a fun project. We broke apart about 60 lbs of rock to reattach into this configuration. Yes, I know that one peak is too high and I'll never be able to put a coral there. Let's call it a design choice.

I brought over rocks from the other tank to help assist with getting the microbiome started, and transferred the baggy of ceramic bioballs from the old sump into the new one. Then I added Dr. Tim's ammonium chloride and a frozen shrimp for good measure (I like watching the gross slime blob grow around it).

Here's where I get in trouble with the tank police, maybe: two of the rocks are just rocks with muck on them, but the other two are my GSP and firework cloves/blue hypnea islands. They're super hardy and I wanted their bacteria! My green rhodactis plug unexpectedly attached to the firework cloves rock, so it came too (but I separated it in the new tank). Critters that joined the fun: an astraea snail that refused to detach, and my emerald crab that I forgot about entirely until I saw it scampering around in the bucket I transferred the rocks with. Fingers crossed for those two. Those rocks came with some spaghetti worms and spionid worms attached to them (regular harmless, not coral boring. I'm sure because I have no stony corals for them to bore into). I'm not too concerned about these, but hopefully they make it! I find hitchhikers to be super interesting.

I'm now waiting for diatoms before I transfer anything else over (except for a couple of my more boring zoa plugs). Once those get started, it's time to bring my conch and trochus snail!

Current tank status:

Nice scape

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

Considered a starry blenny instead of a lawnmower? Of course im totally unbiased

THOSE EYEBROWS